Times Tech

By The Sunday TimesNews Technology Business News Tech News

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Times Tech episodes

November 06, 2020 Ruben Harris: "A backwards version of the Wu-Tang clan”
The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Ruben Harris, co-founder of Career Karma, to talk about starting out as a cellist (3:10), why music convinced him to get into business (6:50), buying a one-way ticket (8:55), his first tech job (11:00), working in political technology (17:30), how starting a podcast led to his startup (18:50), quitting his job (20:30), creating Career Karma (22:00), on whether coding boot camps work (23:50), income-sharing agreements (26:15), how work is changing (28:20), being black in Silicon Valley (30:15), his worst day (34:30), and addressing the laptop shortage (36:20).
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40 min
October 30, 2020 Mmhmm's Phil Libin: "Hospital clowns to investment bankers”
The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Phil Libin, founder of Mmhmm, to talk about fasting (3:35), starting the company (5:00), what it does (9:15), the end of the social media ice age (13:20), a trillion dollar shift (17:00), why he’s not worried about rivals copying him (24:30), who uses it (27:00), how he came up with the name (30:45), what goes wrong at startups (34:20), what skydiving taught him (39:35), the new hybrid world (43:30), and why he plans to leave San Francisco (46:30).
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53 min
October 23, 2020 Avalanche Insights' Michiah Prull: “Measuring oomph”
The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Michiah Prull, founder of Avalanche Insights, to talk about setting up a company after the 2016 election (3:00), starting as a community organiser (5:00), the problem with messaging (6:30), using AI to understand emotions (8:35), finding the right people (11:00), how an algorithm intuits human motivations (13:15), crafting a message (15:45), why the left is bad at it (19:45), fighting polarisation (22:30), levelling the misinformation/information playing field (26:00), whether he will go corporate (27:30), what went wrong in 2016 (31:30), the future of elections (33:00), the outlook for November 3 (35:45), and the evolution of the public’s view of climate change (37:35).
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42 min
October 16, 2020 Parler's John Matze: "Hate speech is free speech"
The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on John Matze, founder of Parler, to talk about starting a social network (4:10), its first viral moment (7:05), reacting to the banning of people online (8:10), echo chambers (11:10), Parler’s hyper-partisan power users (13:25), the site’s rules (15:50), why he doesn’t regulate hate speech (19:50), how the app helps people find others (24:10), why he welcomes the rush of Q Anon users (28:50), why he doesn’t think Parler is pushing people apart (33:25), his investors (36:50), trying to build Parler into a business (39:00), why misinformation is fair game (42:15), and how Katie Hopkins’ arrival attracted users (45:20).
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49 min
October 09, 2020 Standard Cognition's Jordan Fisher: "Cashierless stores are coming"
The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Jordan Fisher, founder of Standard Cognition, to talk about creating a video game (5:00), being rejected from venture capitalists (7:20), helping the financial regulator catch fraudsters (9:30), jumping into cashierless checkouts 12:10), the future of retail (16:30), launching in three stores (21:00), not using check-in gates (23:30), the very analogue backend of cashierless checkout (28:00), raising $86m - thanks to Amazon (32:15), what this means for retail (36:30), the effect of “Bodega-gate” (39:10), getting people used to not paying for stuff (41:10), the facial recognition issue (43:00), selling the system as a DIY kit (46:20), and the moments he thought it wouldn’t work (48:30).
thetimes.co.uk/dannyinthevalley
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52 min
October 02, 2020 Higher Ground Labs' Shomik Dutta: "Nothing clarifies the mind like losing”
The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Shomik Dutta, founder of Higher Ground Labs, to talk about funding democracy tech (3:30), what happened after 2016 (5:30), losing the technology edge every four years (9:10), transforming the Democrats’ technology stack (11:15), creating a master voter database (15:15), Reid Hoffmann’s role (18:30), how to avoid funding the next Cambridge Analytica (22:00), making political investments that are good business (27:15), why social media is the battleground (29:45), his lack of confidence in Facebook (32:20), greasing the wheels of mail-in voting (35:50), the importance of cyber security (37:00), and the run-up to November 3 (38:15).
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41 min
September 25, 2020 NYU's Paul Romer: "An evil decision"
The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Paul Romer, the Nobel prize-winning economist, to talk about the choice between killing people and killing the economy (3:00), the policy failures of the Covid response (7:30), what happens when we reopen (11:35), the state of the economy (16:15), why going back to “normal” is doomed to fail (22:00), why undermining institutions is a problem (26:10), why now is not a good time for entrepreneurs (30:35), undermining the foundations of the economy (32:45), an alternative tech tax (36:45), and where the action is (38:00).
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43 min
September 18, 2020 DoNotPay’s Josh Browder: “A bot to build bots”
The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Josh Browder to talk about building a robot lawyer DoNotPay (3:40), raising money (7:10), overturning parking tickets (10:10), targeting problems that affect at least 50 million people (12:05) his bot builder (13:00), his Silicon Valley evolution (14:55), becoming an investor himself (16:40), becoming a Thiel fellow (18:00), staying in the Bay Area (20:50), the free trial scam (23:10), the porn industry’s dirty tricks (24:50), getting more cynical (27:15), the importance of having a business model (30:00), and suing robo-callers (31:10).
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35 min
September 11, 2020 Bollinger Motors’ Robert Bollinger “I've spent tens of millions on a childhood dream”
The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent brings on Robert Bollinger to talk about hiss previous career selling shampoo (4:25), moving to Detroit (7:05), why he wanted to founded an electric car company (8:35), the Tesla effect (11:00), why pick-up trucks are important (14:35), how parts have become cheaper (20:00), funding the company himself (21:50), how the world has changed (25:00), the turning point (27:00), why subsidies are vital (28:00), why the legacy brands will be ok (31:45), why his ignorance was a good thing (34:10), the importance of hiring well (35:55) and his worst day of work (39:20).
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44 min
September 04, 2020 Paypal's Dan Schulman: “The best way to win a fight is to avoid one”
The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Dan Schulman, chief executive of Paypal, to talk about how the smartphone has changed everything (3:10), the evolution of Paypal (6:00), spending 24 hours as a homeless person (9:05), the wave of corporate 'wokeness' (13:40), how employee expectations have changed (17:20), how Covid has upended its (23:50), beating Sir Richard Branson at tennis (26:35), and why he does mixed martial arts (27:30).
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33 min